Page 85 - Fall2021

Figure 2. Dedications in two books (see text for details).
Mark, Jesse Klapholz (a friend in Philadelphia, Pennsylva- nia, who also had a large collection), and I were always on the hunt for the Holy Grail (at least for electroacousticians): Harry Olson’s Acoustical Engineering (1957). I obtained my first copy from Stevens Book Shop. We also jointly prepared a paper about acoustics and books (Shaw et al., 1994).
Some of the texts from my library are often cited in con- temporary papers and to find and read them (not always from cover to cover) was illuminating, instructional, and, yes, sometimes inspirational, especially when I later met and got to know the authors at ASA and Audio Engi- neering Society (AES) meetings and in more informal settings. Many works in the collection are by colleagues too numerous to name due to space constraints.
Among some others I got to “know,” I have several edi- tions of Fundamentals of Acoustics by Kinsler and Frey (1962), the textbook I used in Richard Stern’s UCLA Engineering Acoustics 153A class; Noise and Vibration Control by Beranek (1971), the textbook for William C. Meecham's (a founder of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering) Acoustics 153C class; and Theoretical Acous- tics by Morse and Ingard (1968), the text for Meecham’s Acoustics 253A class; and books by Lamb (1965) and Knudsen (Knudsen, 1932; Knudsen and Harris, 1954).
The D. Van Nostrand Bell Telephone Laboratories series in my library includes texts by Bode (1945), Mason (1942), and Schelkunoff (1943), all of whom are authors whose work and texts are foundational. These communication theory texts are seminal works in their field and even include acoustics. There is Fletcher’s Speech and Hearing (1929) and Speech and Hearing in Communication (1953). McGraw Hill had
its own collection that included seminal texts in electrical engineering and acoustics (including one by Beranek, 1954).
In electroacoustics, my library includes works by Hunt (1954), Olson (1957), Leach (1998), Rossi (1988), Kleiner (2013), and Eargle (1981, 1 of his 10 books; more at bit.ly/3uA2etb).
My interest in acoustics books led to some work for The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) and the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society (JAES), including book reviews (Shaw, 2001), some time with the Books+ Committee of the ASA, and presently as the JAES associate editor for book reviews. My 35 years as a
book reviewer added many texts to the library.
Beranek was the author of many books that I was intro- duced to in some acoustics courses at UCLA. I met Beranek at ASA meetings and had a collegial relationship with him and was honored to present an invited paper about his books for the special session honoring him at the Spring 2004 ASA meeting (Shaw, 2004).
On a 1986 visit to Brattle Books, I noticed a thin volume, Sound Waves: Their Shape and Speed (Miller, 1937). When I opened it, I saw an inscription (see Figure 2, left). Well, this was astounding! I knew that Morse (1976) was alive and I wrote to him, noting that the text may have been “borrowed.” He affirmed it was, and I returned the book to him. A short time later, I received a signed copy of the ASA reprint of Vibration and Sound (Morse, 1936). I wrote to Morse again in late August to thank him and to let him know that I was going to be in Boston. I received a letter from his attorney informing me that Morse had passed away. So when I was in Boston, I visited the attorney and told her the tale of Sound
Fall 2021 • Acoustics Today 85